Used People

Used People is a 1992 American-Japanese romantic comedy film directed by Beeban Kidron. The screenplay by Todd Graff, adapted from his 1988 off-Broadway play The Grandma Plays, takes a humorous look at a highly dysfunctional family living in the New York City borough of Queens circa 1969.

Plot synopsis

Pearl Berman has just returned home from her husband Jack's funeral, her grief disrupted by her many relatives animatedly discussing which parkway offered the best route to the cemetery. Pearl's family tackles any and every subject - from body odor to toilets to Tupperware to borscht - as if it's worthy of a major debate.

Into a household filled with kvetchers steps Joe Meledandri, a distinguished Italian who years ago met Pearl's wayward husband in a bar and convinced him to return to her. He has desired her ever since, and now that Pearl is a widow, Joe feels the time is right to make his move. He invites her for coffee, his first step on the road to seduction.

What remains to be seen is if he can overcome family objections to religious differences and if he's willing to accept Pearl's daughters: the lonely, overweight Bibby and the pretty but psychologically unstable Norma who dresses up as celebrities to escape the grief that has overwhelmed her since the death of her husband and one of their children. At her father's funeral, Norma dresses up the way Jackie Kennedy appeared at the funeral of her husband; appears as Marilyn Monroe as she serves her surviving son his breakfast; and also impersonates Faye Dunaway and Barbra Streisand among others. And those are just some of the crazy relatives that come as part of the package.